A debate at Demos on whether the Internet is changing politics answered “Yes, but”. With four very different speakers you got four different views.
Tom Watson MP was effusive and positive about the Internet as usual but what I like is that he recognises that any results will depend on political will, not technological facility.
John Lloyd was rather more sceptical – he calls himself a ‘techno hater’. But in fact his evidence seemed to offer as much ground for optimism. Even in Russia, apparently, an intelligent independent blogosphere is starting to emerge.
We will hear more from the excellent Evgeny Morozov at Polis on January 12th – but suffice to say that he points out how those in power are at least as good at using the Net for negative ends, as dissidents are at using it for democratic purposes.
But most lucid on this night was the Conservatives Head of New Media [rather old fashioned title Rishi?] Rishi Saha.
He is a techno-realist but it is clear that he believes that the Internet offers exciting, if incremental democratic possibilities. He puts them in five categories [I think I have these about right]:
1. It reduces the barriers to getting involved in political activism and political media – either independently or through political parties
2. It enables political parties or movements to mobilise support (eg Barrack Obama) much more efficiently
3. It allows political parties and activists to start to escape from mainstream media agenda setting
4. It allows much quicker and more open reform of political parties themselves
5. It allows Government to open itself up to the public and so become more transparent and therefore, both more democratic and efficient
As Rishi said. The Internet is not an ideal place. But even if 95% of activity online is nonsense or commercial that still leaves an exciting 5% space where people do important and political things.
I think the message I took from this event was to stop worrying about the grand questions such as ‘Is the Internet Good or Bad’ and instead to say ‘let’s concentrate on the 5% and making that democratic space more effective and available both in the UK but also globally’.
Interesting to follow via the #demos tweets, but I wonder if the bigger picture wasn’t missed?
Imagine a world where MySociety has built tools that allow people to register and run their own political parties? Parties which need nothing but a virtual presence and the cost of their deposits.
What if Amazon-style search and filter tools help more people find out about these parties?
What if there are 250 parties like the Pirate Party, each getting 0.1% of the vote in an election?
How does Parliament claim legitimacy if the governing party is elected on 20% of the vote rather than 40%?
At that point, then the internet really will start to affect politics. At that point, states need a new way of ensuring their legitimacy, if there isn’t to be a real crisis.
Good for politics? Perhaps. But there’s something of the masochist in David Cameron’s blogging on the Blue blog on Conservatives.com, so much so that I argue that he should stop blogging altogether here:
http://paulseaman.eu/2009/12/david-cameron-should-stop-blogging/
Charlie,
I think that all the five points are valid but it worries me as to whether this is really happening in the world of politics.
The test will be next year’s election.I hope sincerely that the internet allows the majority of people to re connect with the political process and that we can have informed debate about our future options.
I think though that it will take more than a pure platform to do that.Politics needs to be seen as being transparent,democratic,open sourced for the internet to play an important role